Kourtney Kardashian wants to make Boohoo’s fast-fashion sustainable. Spoiler alert: she can’t

theguardian.com:

Good news for people who like being lied to and wearing clothes that smell of petrochemicals: Boohoo, a UK-based online fast-fashion brand that has grown quickly in the US, has announced that they will be partnering with Kourtney Kardashian to embark on a “sustainability journey”.

The destination is unclear, but the “journey’’ will involve 46 limited-edition pieces of clothing made from “recycled fibers, traceable cotton, recycled sequins and recycled polyester” as well as “transparent practices for shoppers who want to learn more about the apparel”.

Although still a small fish in the US fast-fashion market, Boohoo is a fast fashion behemoth in the UK, which means that their clothes are made from cheap, environmentally-damaging materials, and that their workers in Pakistan are paid as little as 33 cents an hour to work in unsafe conditions. The result of this tried-and-tested exploitation method is an average of more than 700 different poorly-made items being uploaded to their website every week, ready for the consumer to add to basket for a quick burst of serotonin and a new outfit to upload to Instagram on the weekend.

Following over $1bn of sales in the first financial quarter of 2021, Boohoo has aggressive plans from US expansion, with the Kardashian capsule collection which will be launched at New York fashion week the centerpiece of their US launch.

In July, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that Boohoo was under investigation over “greenwashing”, the practice of using inaccuracy or exaggeration in branding something as sustainable or environmentally sound. Of particular scrutiny is their “Ready for the Future” line which vaguely claims that items in this line “are made of more than 20% of more